Best for Privacy

Cryptos
  • Bitcoin
Wallet Type
  • Android

Samourai Wallet tries to address many of the issues that the most ideologically committed bitcoiners spend their time thinking about.  You can connect Samorai to your trusted node. Samorai is leading the charge as it pertains to privacy. It comes automatically integrated with Tor and VPN support so you can route payments anonymously.  Change outputs are random, so it becomes more difficult to glean information about your wallet activity. Transactions may be sent with four additional “hops” – so it is more difficult to determine the originating wallet. You can also set up reusable payment codes which  route payments to different addresses. And they have got a really cool SMS self-destruct feature, which removes the app from your phone.

So lots of cool features some of which, like the “hop” transactions, will be established as a foundational aspect of the lightning protocol.  However, a lot of this stuff is simply not at all needed for normal bitcoin users. If you do not want to play around with this stuff, Samourai offers excellent security for an Android app – but it sort of like buying a sledgehammer to drive a nail.  There are easier to wield options.

Best all-in-one

Cryptos
  • Bitcoin
Wallet Type
  • iOS, Android

What makes Airbitz different from other standard mobile wallets is the number of third party integrations available via plugin.  You can buy and sell bitcoin directly to/from your airbitz wallet via glidera in the US and clevercoin in Europe. Gift cards are available for purchase with bitcoin, and an integration with bitrefill allows you to top up your mobile phone.  There is a host of different bitcoin businesses available in the directory – Airbitz endeavors, it would seem, to become a convenient marketplace where bitcoin holders can spend their pocket money.

Your seed is generated client-side and encrypted by your chosen password.  An encrypted version of your seed is stored on the device and on Airbitz’s cloud server, so if you were to lose your device you would still be able to access your account from a new phone if you remember your user and password.  So, not for storing your life savings, but to be honest none of these Android wallets are meant to do so.

Best Multicoin

Cryptos
  • Bitcoin
  • Ethereum
  • Litecoin
  • Bitcoin Cash
  • Clams
  • Dash
  • DigiByte
  • Dogecoin
  • Ethereum Classic
  • Feathercoin
  • GameCredits
  • Gulden
  • Komodo
  • MonaCoin
  • Namecoin
  • NeosCoin
  • Nubits
  • OKcash
  • Omni
  • Peercoin
  • PIVX
  • PotCoin
  • Ripple
  • Stratis
  • Syscoin
  • Tether
  • Vertcoin
  • Zcash
Wallet Type
  • iOS, Android

Coinomi is hands down the best multicoin mobile wallet, currently available only on Android devices.  All like, 100 coins or so are backed up from the same seed, meaning you can backup all your holding from one mnemonic.  Convenient! This seed is stored locally, and once recorded offline may be wiped from the app. Shapeshift and Changelly are both integrated in Coinomi, so you may quickly and securely trade altcoins and bitcoin directly to and from your wallet.    

Best Multisig

Cryptos
  • Bitcoin
Wallet Type
  • iOS, Android, Desktop, Web
Security
  • Multisig

Looking for a mobile wallet which gives you additional security?  Copay theoretically delivers this in the form of a multisignature bitcoin address structure.  What does this mean exactly? You can set your wallet to require the signing of anywhere between 2 or 2 to 4 of 6 users.  Send a QR code to the additional signees (Copay walks you through the process for this, step by step), and any would be thief would need to compromise the devices of all signers in order to steal your coin.  

Note that Copay is owned by bitpay, which means different things to different people.  To some, it means a highly successful merchant processing service backs copay, which is great!  To others, it means that a untrustworthy actor, who offered vocal support for the disastrous failure of a hard fork segwit2x, and supports bitcoin cash primarily because one of their early investors is Roger Ver.      

Best for Beginners

Cryptos
  • Bitcoin
  • Ethereum
  • Bitcoin Cash
Wallet Type
  • iOS, Android

Looking for a really simple, easy to use Android wallet?  Just go for breadwallet, aka BRD. You have got two screens really – send and receive.  Can’t screw that up. While it downloads using bits rather than bitcoin, you can switch that in the settings menu.  

The alternative simple to use Android (and iOS, reall) app is Mycelium.  Breadwallet is better, full stop. Breadwallet offered bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold support to customers when they launched.  Mycelium could not handle it, and it was a massive pain to get your new coin out of Mycelium in order to convert into real bitcoin.

And this in anecdotal, but on two occasions I was personally unable to withdraw from Mycelium because of problems they were fixing.  These problems disappeared within a day, but come on, really? Never heard this happening with BreadWallet.

Your key is generated client side and is not stored anywhere by Bread Wallet.  Write down your private key separately, or you will not be able to access your wallet if you lose your phone.  

Still haven’t found what you are looking for?  Check out all the best bitcoin wallets for more.